Traditionally ‘The Chariot’ pulled by two spirited creatures – black and white – symbolizes the two sides of our nature, which, unless guided by a strong and equanimous will, (the charioteer) will pull in opposite directions with disastrous result.

In my daily, and particularly when at work in my studio/laboratory, I encounter my own dual nature, in distinctive and sometimes horrifying glory. On one side is reason and the desire for precise articulation and a clear, straight road to follow. On the other, the energy of spontaneous impulse and intuition, raw emotion or feeling, bristles at the suggestion of parameter and constraint, whipping up wind-rain tempests in protest against my plans. Somewhere at the cross-paths of these two, is the potentiality of a deft navigation of the gale. This is the place where art is encountered.

Always in the back of my mind too, there is the image of a doorway or gateway, the wish to open Ways into the ‘Other World’ – the place of imagination. The imagination is a faculty that rides with ease across the sensuous and liminal impressions of this kaleidoscopic world, (without the need to name and package them quickly into a trunk) where meaning rises to the surface, bubbling up like letters and throaty utterings that, in their own time, sink back again into the depths and scintillating light, like chariot wheels of day and night.